Posts tagged ‘tasting’

The Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout is (as its name suggests) an oatmeal stout from the Rogue Ales craft brewery in Oregon. Served in an imposing 22oz bottle this 6% ABV American-style stout has won many awards including gold in the 2006 World Beer cup.

Given my recent love of cream stouts I approached this beer with an air of anticipation. For this reason I decided to leave the oatmeal stout to the end of the gifted batch.

The beer pours very dark as expected with a light brown head which is a short but thick and very long lived. The aroma of the cascade hops is evident and heavy enough to trigger a taste response by merely smelling the brew. Initial tasting reveals an extremely bitter malt flavor with a thick mouthfeel and a mid range of carbonation. As indicated by its name the main taste characteristics are backed by a noticeable but not overpowering oatmeal flavor.

In my current worldview of beers the closest brew I can compare this offering to is that of the Hypercat Brown Ale. The main characteristic of this brew is its all-around bitterness: bitterness of the dark malts and an unnecessary overabundance of hops. Maybe its just my personal batch, but I fail to agree with the labeled rating of 69 IBU and would rate it much higher.

Although based on the reviews I should like this beer I just can’t recommend to anyone out there unless you like the taste of burnt toast. Instead stick with something a lot more balanced in its bitter and sweet profile.

This organically produced ale (no discerning name given) is one in the line of beers produced by the Samuel Smith brewery. Known for using the same strain of yeast since the 19th century the brewery produces almost all of its brews with a brewing method utilizing a yorkshire square. Given the history and unique method used to create this beer my hopes were high for a distinct taste.(more…)

Péché Mortel is an imperial coffee stout brewed by the Dieu du Ciel microbrewery and pub in Montréal, Canada starting in 2001. This beer has the highest alcohol content of all their brews at 9.5% which pairs perfectly with the imperial stout characteristics.(more…)

Since I’ve been in the middle of a moving and home renovations I haven’t been able to hop back on to the brewing wagon lately. However, for my birthday one of my friends got me an assortment of craft beers. Since it will be a while before I can get back into brewing I figured it would be good to take some time and review some other beers.

If you were paying attention to the end of the post about the brewing of the Honey Bunny Sweet Wheat you may have noticed that there was a pretty steep drop in gravity from 1.069 to 1.010. This corresponds to a simliar spike in the final ABV of the beer, and terms of taste the higher alcohol content is absolutely front and center. I don’t know at this point if the high fermentation level was from the large amount of DME, a highly attenuative yeast, or from the yeast feasting upon the easily digestible honey sugars but nonetheless there was a higher than expected level of alcohol in the final beer.(more…)

Although I am still in the early stages of my brewing hobby I was rather skeptical of the 3oz of hops called for in this recipe. Upon tasting this beer I can say that I was not that far off base. In short, the Hyper Cat Brown Ale turned out bitter as hell. The 85 minute boil time of the 12% AA hops imparted such a high level of alpha acids the final product had more of a bitter profile of an IPA without the counteracting sweetness.

Overall the malt profile was a dead-on match with that of Abita Turbodog. However, if and when I attempt this brew again in the future I will likely cut down the boil time of the Columbus hops to 30 minutes and only 1oz Williamette at 5 minutes. Also, the brew was slightly under carbonated for what I was looking to achieve. Therefore, in the future I will likely up the priming sugar to a level 1 tbsp per bottle.